


Curse of the Evil One

by Kelticmoon



Series: Fixit Series compliant fics [8]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Bittersweet Ending, Fixit series compliant, Gen, Keith sees dead people, M/M, Paranorman inspired, Post Season 7, Pre-Fixit Series, Season 8: Don't know her, The other Paladins are tired of Shiro and Keith's shit!, Witch Trials
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2020-11-26 22:30:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20937806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kelticmoon/pseuds/Kelticmoon
Summary: A distress call from a planet in the Milky Way sends the Paladins on a brief mission to Vulpesun, a planet of anthromorphic foxes with two tails. However, something strange is going on.Keith can suddenly see dead people...





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Moving another fic over from tumblr and updating it to better fit my Fixit Series.

The Paladins receive a distress call from a planet in the Milky Way while the Atlas is being repaired and modified from the battle with Sendak and Earth is rebuilding from the Galra Invasion. With the ship still down, the five Paladins travel to the planet themselves and since Slav is currently on Earth assisting with repairs to the Atlas, Shiro joins them for the sake of his own sanity.

"Gotta admit, its nice to be answering a distress call for a planet in the Milky Way," Hunk states. "I wonder what aliens we'll meet."

Upon landing, Keith is immediately taken aback by what he sees when they leave the Lions. The people of the planet look like anthromorphic foxes with red, black-gray, or yellow fur with two tails and red, black, or blonde hair respectively, but that’s not what catches him off guard.

They’re soon greeted by a welcoming party lead by one with yellow fur.

“Welcome travelers! My name is Mera, I am the leader of the Vulpesunes,” she greets them.

Shiro introduces himself before turning to the others.

“We’re with the Voltron Coalition.”

“We picked up your distress signal and come to offer our assistance,” Allura adds.

“We have an issue we cannot resolve on our own…but I’m unsure if you **_can_ **help us,” Mera says insecurely.

“Er… Does it have anything to do with the transparent set of people floating around?” Keith asks without looking at her.

Mera perks up and looks at him.

“You can see the spirits?”

“Er... Yes?”

“Perhaps you can help us after all.”

Mera turns to her people.

“He can see the spirits!”

As a small cheer runs through the welcoming party, she turns back to them.

“Follow me quickly! There isn’t much time before sundown and there is much to be explained.”

As they’re walking to the center of town, Keith accidentally walks through one of the spirits.

“Hey, watch it!”

Keith jumps out of the way.

“Erm… Sorry!”

Shiro walks up as it floats away.

“Keith, you ok?”

Keith looks back at him looking extremely freaked out.

_ **“What. The fuck. Is going. On?”** _

“I will explain when we get to the Culture center,” Mera assures.

Mera leads them to a building in the center of town that looks like a Culture Center. Once inside she leads them to a room on the first floor where they see what looks like wooden carvings with a scary looking black fox figure with red eyes surrounded by five other fox people. Next to it is a similar carving except the five other people are replaced with fox-like skulls.

“In memory of the five victims of the Evil One’s Curse,” Hunk reads.

“How charming…” Lance remarks.

Mera turns to them.

“That’s why we need your help. A millennium ago, there was a criminal that was tried and condemned to death. When the sentence was carried out, on her last breath she cast a terrible curse upon those who sentenced her.”

“Mind if we ask what she did that was so bad that she was condemned to die?” Keith asks with a raised eyebrow.

“The exact reason has been lost to time I’m afraid, but it is said she could do dark and terrible things. She was not the first to be condemned for such things at that time but she was the last.”

“That kinda sounds like the Witch Trials back on Earth,” Pidge points out.

“Since then every year when the sun goes down on this date, the Evil One along with her victims awaken and attack the town unless a Spirit-Seer puts her back to sleep.”

“Just guessing here, but you don’t have a Spirit-Seer right now do you?” Lance asks.

“You are correct. For the first time ever, our last Spirit-Seer passed on before his successor could be born.”

“Is that why Keith is the only one who can see the spirits?” Hunk asks.

“Most likely, Keith has a similar ability that works the same,” Pidge theorizes.

“So what do you need us to do?” Shiro asks.

Mera hands them an ancient tome.

“The one you call Keith must read from this tome at her grave site and she should remain sleeping for another year. You should find it in the oldest part of the graveyard outside town.”

“We do not have much time before the sun goes down so we had better hurry,” Allura says taking the book.

They head outside just as the skies start to darken. They find the graveyard and locate an ancient path with a plaque reading:

“Beyond lies the victims of the Evil One’s Curse,” Lance reads. “It must be down here.”

“Thank you Captain Obvious,” Pidge teases.

“Good, let’s find that grave, read the book, and get outta here,” Hunk says nervously. “This place gives me the creeps.”

“I agree with Hunk,” Allura adds uneasily. “Something feels… wrong here.”

They walk down the path to find a circle of five headstones right before the sunsets.

Keith opens the book and frowns when he looks at it.

“What the…?”

“What’s wrong?” Pidge asks.

“I was thinking they’d given us an enchantment or spell or something. This is a children’s story… A fairy tale…”

“Are you sure?” Allura asks.

“Yes, it literally starts off with what can only be this planet’s equivalent to ‘once upon a time’.”

The sun slips below the horizon and the clouds grow darker.

“Does it matter what it is?!" Hunk exclaims. "This is seriously _**not** _the weirdest thing we’ve been asked to do! Just read it!”

Keith shrugs.

“Once on Vulpesun, there was a ship captain and a druid…”

Suddenly, a streak of red lightning forks across the sky as the clouds turn red and purple. The sky just gets worse as Keith reads.

Hunk frets.

“It’s not working! Why isn’t it working?!”

“I don’t know but I think the clouds are forming a face,” Lance points out.

“Keith, look out!”

Shiro grabs Keith and pulls him away just before a bolt of purple lightning hits the ground where he was standing moments before.

“Thanks.”

The ground starts to shake as five zombie fox people rise up from the graves; two red, two yellow, one silver-black.

“Fall back to the town until we can figure out what we’re doing wrong!” Keith tells them.

They reach the edge of the graveyard as the skies quickly take the shape of a purple foxlike face with red glowing eyes. Red and purple lightning forks across the sky.

“So, that just happened,” Pidge says.

“I don’t get it. What did we do wrong?” Lance asks.

“Hey, maybe they buried her somewhere else?” Hunk suggests nervously. “You know like in an unmarked grave or something.”

“Well that’s great, how do we find it then?”

“Let us check in with Mera and see if they have a record of where she was actually buried,” Allura suggests.

“Why didn’t we ask for directions in the first place?!” Pidge asks.

They quickly locate Mera.

“What’s happening?” Mera asks in alarm.

“We can’t seem to find her grave,” Shiro explains calmly. “Are there any records that say where exactly her grave is?”

“Only the Spirit-Seer knew of such things,” Mera explains.

“Who made that rule?!” Lance asks.

“Any such records would be in the Hall of Records in the Culture Center,” Mera tells them nervously.

At that moment, they hear screams as the zombies reach the town border.

“Mera, have your people stay inside their homes for safety,” Allura tells Mera before they run to the Culture Center.

Through the glass roof of the Hall of Records, lightning flashes as they stare at the literal wall to wall bookshelves filled with books and papers.

“This mission just got a lot more annoying,” Lance whines.

“These books aren’t going to read themselves,” Pidge says as she picks one up.

30 doboshes later, they’re still no closer to finding the location of the gravesite.

“Ugh! This is taking forever!” Allura whines.

“I agree,” Pidge says. “I mean, I like reading but not this much.”

Shiro looks around.

“Hey where’s Keith?”

“Hey yeah, he should be helping!” Lance adds. “He’s the one who’s supposed to be reading!”

They hear his voice across the hall.

“I’m in here guys!”

The other Paladins look at each other before following Keith’s voice into the room with the Evil One figurines to find him staring at them.

“Keith, you should be helping u…”

Shiro stops Allura when he sees the thoughtful frown on Keith’s face as he stares at the figures. Shiro walks closer.

“What’s wrong?”

Keith doesn’t look up as he speaks.

“Something about this story…doesn’t add up… It feels like we’re missing something…”

“Uh yeah, the grave site. That’s why we’re here,” Hunk states.

Keith shakes his head.

“Not just that… Something just… feels off. I can’t explain it…”

“Let’s get back to work while Keith stares at the furry Salem Witch toys,” Lance states.

Keith gasps.

‘Salem Witch…’

“Lance, that’s it!”

The other Paladins stop in their tracks and look back as he picks up the figure of the Evil One.

“Pidge.”

Keith points at the smallest Paladin before continuing.

“You said that the story of how the curse happened sounded like the Witch Trials from back home, right?”

“That is indeed what I said.”

Keith turns toward them seriously.

“Every single person that was tried, convicted, and murdered in those things was completely innocent. Meanwhile most of the “victims” were either crazy, zealots, or lying.”

“What does this have to do with the mission?” Allura asks.

“You think we might be helping the wrong person?” Pidge guesses.

“I think there’s more to this story than we’ve been told…”

“Uh, guys I hate to interrupt but we’ve got a small problem out here.”

Hunk points toward the backdoor of the Culture Center. The others look and see the zombies have found a way inside.

“Fall back to the Hall of Records!”

They follow Shiro’s command and lock the door with a bar through the handles.

Keith spots a flight of stairs heading up to the roof and picks up the book.

“I have an idea! Cover me!”

Keith heads up the stairs before they can respond.

The others look at each other.

Shiro shrugs.

“You heard the man.”

~

Keith uses his jetpack to get up to the roof faster.

Once there, he hesitates for just a moment before gripping the book and flying up closer to the face to hover above the Culture Center.

“Hey!”

The angry face in the sky turns to look at him.

“What happened to you?! What really happened that day?!”

He holds up the book.

“And why do they keep reading you a goddamn fairy tale every year?!”

Red and purple lightning strikes Keith square in the chest, causing his jet pack to fail.

“Augh!”

Darkness envelopes him as he falls.

~

Inside the Hall of Records, the sound of the glass roof breaking followed by a thud draws the other Paladins’ attention further into the room.

~

Keith awakens with a start in complete darkness.

There’s a light to his left and he looks up to see the five fox zombies as they had looked before the curse behind what looks like a judge’s podium.

It’s a courtroom. A judge and four witnesses.

“Meluna, you are charged with the dishonorable crime of demon summoning!” declares the judge, a large silver black fox-person.

Keith hears crying behind him.

He turns around and gasps in horror when he sees a little fox-like person about half the size of Pidge; clearly a child. Her fur was blackish gray like the judge but she had red eyes and three tails as opposed to just two with brown eyes.

She cries as she pleads with them.

“No! Please I didn’t do anything wrong!”

“The punishment for such a heinous crime is execution!” the judge declares.

“But I was only playing!”

“Indeed! With fire!” one of the red accusers tells her.

“You were speaking with the dead!” says one of the yellow accusers.

“We’ll not risk demonic possession because of you, Evil One!” the Judge states.

“No! I didn’t do anything wrong!”

The five of them close in on her.

“Stop! She’s just a kid! You can’t do this!”

Keith instinctively tries to protect her even though he knows it’s pointless.

The girl’s eyes start to glow red and purple.

“I’ll make you sorry! I’ll make all of you sorry!”

Keith closes his eyes against the blinding light.

~

Keith’s body aches as he slowly comes to.

He weakly opens his eyes a little to find himself on the floor under the glass roof. Only there’s now a hole in said roof. As he comes to a little more, he realizes there’s black smoking coming from the direct center of his chest armor where the lightning struck him.

His helmet has been removed and his head resting in Shiro’s lap.

“Shiro…”

Shiro lets out a sigh of relief as his face comes into view upside down.

“Oh thank God!”

“Dude! You scared the shit out of us!” Hunk exclaims from his left.

“Indeed!” Allura adds in relief.

“Correction, you scared them,” Pidge states plainly from beside Hunk. “I already told them the fall just knocked you out.”

“What the fuck were you thinking?!” Lance yells at him from his right side. “You could have been killed!”

Keith tries to sit up with a grunt but ends up leaning against Shiro for support.

“I know what really happened…”

Keith groans weakly as he tries again.

“My hunch was right… she was innocent…”

“Oh quiznak! Guys, we’re cornered!”

Pidge jumps to her feet and pulls out her bayard as the five zombies appear at the start of the aisle, blocking their way. Lance, Hunk, and Allura each pull out their bayards and stand behind her with Shiro moving to protect Keith.

“Wait…”

Everyone stops in their tracks at Keith’s tired command.

“I don’t think they’re here to hurt us…”

They all look back at the zombies.

“You must… stop… the curse!” the zombie judge tells Keith.

“Please… read from the book… stop the curse…” one of the other men pleads.

Keith looks at the book where it landed.

“Fairy tales… A bedtime story…”

Keith grunts understandingly as Shiro helps him up.

“It’s a bedtime story… isn’t it?”

“We’re reading her a bedtime story?” Pidge asks puzzled. “Why?”

“Yeah, I don’t get it,” Lance admits.

Keith just looks at the zombies.

“You know what I’m talking about, don’t you?”

“Please… you must help us…” a woman zombie pleads. “We just want to rest.”

Keith limps over to the book and picks it up. It now sports a burnt hole in the center.

“Let me see if I have this right…”

None of them have heard the calm tone in Keith’s voice before but somehow they all knew he was anything but calm as they all moved out of the space between Keith and the zombies.

“You want me to help you read her a bedtime story so you’ll all sleep peacefully for another year?”

“Please…” one of the other zombies begs.

Keith’s turns and throws the burnt book across the room so hard, it catches even Shiro off guard.

It hits the judge in the stomach before landing at the feet of the zombies.

**“Read it to her yourself!!”**

Keith’s voice echoes in the room as his fists hang tight at his sides.

“As far as I’m concerned, you people deserved what happened!”

The other Paladins are stunned speechless. They’ve seen Keith angry before but this? He’s so pissed his eyes have turned yellow. They might not know what’s going on, but whatever it is; Keith. Is. LIVID.

They quickly move to stand behind him in support as Keith stares down the five zombies.

“How could you?”

There’s disgust in Keith’s voice as he speaks.

“How did you justify what you did to her?! She may have been different but she was just a child…How could you murder her like that?!”

The others connect the dots.

“Wait, she was a child?!” Allura asks in outrage.

“Like a child child?” Lance asks.

“How young are we talking here?” Pidge asks.

“She looked about the same age as Lance’s niece,” Keith states plainly without taking his eyes off of the zombies. “Maybe younger.”

“That is messed up!!” Hunk declares.

To their credit, the zombies look down at their feet in shame as all six Paladins now glare at them.

“We were scared…” the judge says.

“And that justifies it?!” Keith yells back indignantly.

“We… thought we were doing what was right. We were wrong…”

“So every year for the past 1000 years, you have someone read her a goddamn bedtime story to keep her sleeping so you won’t have to suffer the consequences of your actions?!”

“In life, we were so sure we knew what was right… but in death we are lost… Please, you must help us.”

Keith looks at them.

“If I’m doing this, we’re doing this my way. No more of this reading her to sleep bullshit. Putting her to sleep every year isn’t solving the problem, it’s just sweeping it under the rug for another year. Nothing ever gets fixed, nothing ever gets better. The problem just gets bigger.”

“What will you do?” the other zombie woman asks.

“I’m going to break the cycle.”

Keith shoulders past the zombies.

“How are you going to do that?” Shiro asks genuinely.

“By doing what these assholes should have done in the first place! I’m going to talk to her.”

“We still don’t know where her grave is,” Lance reminds him.

Keith turns back to the zombies.

“I assume, you know where she’s buried?”


	2. Chapter 2

It turns out, they don’t really need the zombies to help them find it. It’s clear where it is by the source of the vortex causing her cloud.

“Well, that makes things easy…” Pidge mutters.

Keith runs straight toward the source of the clouds into a wooded area with the others close behind him.

As soon as they hit the path, the ground starts to heave and shake. All at once, several trees around them move to block the path.

Hunk dodges left.

“Trees are moving! Oh man, I’m having serious MacBeth flashbacks from high school!”

Lance dodges right.

“Ugh! Don’t remind me! I hated MacBeth!”

Shiro jumps over one.

“I was thinking more Lord of the Rings than MacBeth.”

Pidge cuts up on a branch with her bayard.

“Did you know Tolkien wrote that series because he saw MacBeth and was disappointed at how Shakespeare handled some of the scenes.”

Lance laughs.

“Only you would know that, Pidge.”

Allura dodges another branch.

“Who are MacBeth and this Lord of the Rings and why do all of you know them?”

“One’s a play and one’s a book series,” Pidge explains. “Remind me to show them to you when we get back to Earth. I have both.”

They continue to run, dodge, and cut through branches until they reach a path leading to an old tree.

They see the vortex emanating from the old tree.

Keith walks closer.

“Hello?”

They all hear a disembodied voice, clearly female.

“You’re not welcome here! Go away!”

“I need to talk to you.”

“Who are you?”

“I’m Keith, and these are my friends... You don’t really know us, but I know you… we’re actually kinda the same you and I…”

“You’re not dead!”

“That’s true.”

“And you’re a boy! You’re not like me at all!”

“Well, I know how you feel…”

“No you don’t! You don’t know anything about me!”

“I know your name is really Meluna…”

“What?!”

“And I know you’re probably tired, right? Because I mean… it’s really late and it’s been a long night so…”

Suddenly, they all hear a whisper in their left ears.

“I don’t want to go to sleep… and you can’t make me.”

The ground starts to rumble and shake beneath their feet.

“That’s not creepy at all!” Hunk exclaims.

Wooden spikes suddenly jolt up from the ground suddenly, forcing them all to move and evade. Shiro and the others are suddenly grabbed and held by the trees around them as Keith runs for the tree with the vortex, dodging the spikes as he goes.

He uses his bayard to cut through a thicket of spikes blocking his path to the tree before hopping over the ones behind it. He bursts through a final wall of wooden spikes’ splinters cutting his face as he hits the ground with a thud.

He catches his breath for a moment before looking up at the tree.

There stands a purple and red spirit in the shape of a young fox girl with three tails hovering over Keith.

“I burnt the book into dust! Now I don’t have to listen to that stupid story anymore!”

She knocks Keith back with a blast of lighting.

“Keith!”

Shiro struggles frantically against the tree that’s holding him as she hits Keith again and again with her lightning from different sides.

After several blasts, Keith slumps to the ground with a groan.

The girl stands over him.

“Leave me alone…”

Keith sets his jaw as he struggles to get up.

“No…”

He turns to her.

“Just listen to me…”

He walks toward her.

“Once on Vulpesun… long ago…there was a little girl…”

“What?” 

“A little girl who was different… from the other people on her planet…”

“I’m not listening!”

She splits into four copies of herself and circles around Keith, occasionally shoving him.

“She could see… and do things… that no one could understand… and she looked different… and that made them scared of her…”

“I don’t like this story!”

“She turned away from everyone… and became sad and lonely… and had no one to turn to,” Keith continues through her strikes.

“STOP IT!”

A burst of blinding light envelopes the area, knocking Shiro and the other Paladins out of the trees’ grasp.

The other Paladins struggle to look up and see that most of the trees between them and the vortex tree were leveled. They looked toward the tree as the girl comes up out of the ground in front of it.

Shiro watches Keith struggle to his feet once more as he continues his story.

“But the more she turned away from people… the more scared they became of her. And they did something terrible!”

The girl freezes at this part.

“They became so scared that they killed her."

“No!”

“But even though she was dead, something in her came back.”

“Stop!”

“And this part of her wouldn’t go away after 1,000 years!”

“Shut up!”

“But the more it stayed, the less there was of the little girl…”

An ear splitting scream fills the air, forcing the others to cover their ears.

The ground beneath their feet quickly starts to shake as everything around them changes until it looks nothing like the planet they were just on. Soon the ground starts to break apart and float and they’re forced to grab onto the nearest thing to them, lest they fall.

The wind roars around them as they’re forced to grab the nearest thing to them, lest they fall.

Lance grabs a tree and pulls Pidge in next to him before yelling.

“What’s happening?!”

“Seriously! How is she able to do this?!” Hunk yells from the tree floating beside them.

“I think we’re in the Infinite Void now… or something like it!” Pidge yells from under Lance’s arm as she holds onto their tree. “She must have brought us all here when we were knocked out of the trees and we didn’t notice!”

“So we’re all asleep?!”

“I don’t know, I’m guessing!”

“It looks different from the Infinite Void we know!” Allura yells from the floating rock she’s standing on with Shiro.

“I think her anger is corrupting this particular part of it!”

Shiro’s turns all his attention then to Keith standing on a floating rock nearby.

The girl’s spirit yells at Keith from where the tree floats.

“I’ll make you suffer!!”

“Why?!”

The part Keith’s standing on breaks away and he has to catch himself and hold onto it.

“Because…”

The girl looks confused.

“Because…”

Keith pulls himself up onto the flat part of the rock again.

“Because you want everyone else to hurt just as much as you. So every time you wake up, you play this mean game! But you don’t play fair!”

Keith runs and jumps from the rock he’s on onto a smaller rock closer to her.

“They hurt me!”

“So you hurt them back?!”

“I wanted everyone to see how terrible they were!”

She disappears into the tree right before it explodes out from underneath Keith.

“KEITH!”

Allura has to stop Shiro from jumping after him.

Keith feels some invisible force catch him and pull him in like gravity back toward the tree. He gets slammed into it repeatedly until he’s dazed and then the force lets him fall. He grabs onto a branch at the last second and holds on as the tree turns horizontal. Keith pulls himself back up onto the tree and faces the girl’s angry spirit.

“They did something terrible, but that doesn’t mean you should too! All that’s left in you now is mean and horrible.”

“That’s not true!”

“Then stop!”

Keith inches toward her.

“This is wrong and you know it! You’ve spent so long remembering the bad people that you forgot the good ones!”

He inches even closer as he continues.

“There must have been someone who loved you and cared for you! You don’t remember them?!”

“Leave me alone!”

Shiro can tell Keith’s starting to get through to her.

“But you’re not alone! You have to remember!”

“Keep away from me!”

She tries to flee.

“Remember!”

Keith jumps forward and grabs her by the hand and they’re enveloped in another blinding light.

“Man, again with the blinding light! I swear we’re all going to go blind from this mission!” Lance complains as it envelopes them too.

~

When the light dims, they’re standing in a meadow with the large tree that looks like a black willow tree with red flowers and purple leaves. It’s quiet and peaceful and there are butterflies flying around them and patches of purple wildflowers growing around them.

“This place was so pretty,” Allura comments.

Shiro looks over where Keith is still standing.

In his hand, he holds the tiny hand of a small Vulpesune with silvery black fur, three tails, and red eyes.

“Holy crow, she **_is_** young…” Lance states.

The little girl drops Keith’s hand and looks down at her own.

“Mellie…”

She looks up at Keith, who by now has crouched down to her height.

“I was called Mellie…”

Keith just smiles at her gently.

She looks around the clearing.

“I remember… My mum would bring me here…”

She moves toward the tree.

“We would sit under this tree… and she’d tell me stories… they all had happy endings.”

She stops then and clenches her fists as she turns back to him with her ears flat.

“One day, those people came and took me away… and I never saw her again!!”

Her eyes glow red and purple for a moment before she stops when she sees a flower from the tree burn in front of her before hitting the ground.

She runs under the tree and starts to cry.

Keith’s face softens as he approaches her.

“Sometimes when people get scared. They say and do terrible things. I think you got so scared that… you forgot who you are.”

He stops just behind her.

“But I don’t think you’re evil… not really.”

She wipes her tears away.

“You don’t?”

“I think you’re just a little kid who was born different with a special gift.”

He crouches down to her level once more.

“Who only ever wanted people to understand she had no say in how she looked or that she could do these things. So we’re not all that different at all.”

She looks at him sincerely.

“But… what about the people who hurt you? Don’t you ever want to make them suffer?”

Keith shrugs.

“What good does that ever do? You think that just because there are bad people that there aren’t any good ones either?”

Keith looks down for a moment.

“I thought so too for a while.”

He locks eyes with Shiro across the meadow as he continues.

“But, there’s always someone out there for you. Someone.”

He and Shiro exchange a gentle smile.

_**“Ugh!”**_ The other four say in unison.

“Seriously, can’t these two weirdos go **one mission** together without giving each other heart eyes at some point?!” Pidge mutters.

Mellie walks toward the tree whimpering.

“I just want my mum…”

Keith stands.

“She’s gone, Mellie…”

“That story you were telling before…”

She looks at him.

“How does it end?”

“That’s up to you.”

She looks around for a moment before walking over to the tree and resting her hand on its trunk.

“Is this where they buried me?”

“I’m no expert on final resting places, but it seems like a good place to sleep.”

She sits down.

“And you can be with you mom again.”

She looks up at him innocently.

“Can you sit with me, please? I’m scared…”

Without a second thought, Keith sits down beside her against the tree and holds out his hand to her. She takes it and lays down against the tree with her head resting on his shoulder.

She closes her eyes.

“Thank you…”

Slowly she disappears into a mist of red and purple.

Everything else around them gently melts away into a gentle white light.

~

They all awaken back in the clearing with the old tree in almost the exact spots they were in when the burst of light knocked them out of the trees; everyone except Keith.

“I told you we were in the Infinite Void…” Pidge tells the others.

Shiro looks over at where Keith is still sitting leaning against the tree with his eyes closed in the same spot he sat next to Mellie. He walks over to Keith as he wakes up with a jolt and looks up at the tree behind him.

Keith staggers to his feet (and Shiro means _**staggers**_) while clutching his side and places one of his hands against the tree.

“Rest easy, small one…”

He feels Shiro rest his left hand on Keith’s shoulder and Keith covers Shiro’s hand with his own without looking at him.

“We should inform Mera that the curse has been broken,” Allura says.

She and the others head for the path back to town.

Keith lets out a little groan as he turns and limps after them and Shiro is struck suddenly by just how worn out Keith is from that fight.

Until recently, it’s been Shiro whose been injured. Even though Shiro knows he isn’t, Keith has always seemed invincible to him. Recently however it seems like life is constantly reminding Shiro just how fragile Keith’s life is.

“Here.”

Shiro ducks under Keith’s arm and wraps his left arm around Keith’s waist to hold him up.

Keith gives him a grateful smile.

“Thanks.”

~

Allura tells Mera what REALLY happened to the so-called “Evil One” as Shiro helps Keith sit in a chair.

“We thank you for breaking the curse for us,” Mera tells Keith personally.

“I didn’t break it for **you**,” Keith specifies tiredly. “I broke it for _her_.”

“We assume you had no idea she was a child?” Allura asks.

“None whatsoever!”

“Make sure it’s never forgotten again,” Keith tells her firmly. “We have a saying where we’re from. ‘Those who don’t learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.’”

“Wise words we would be fools not to heed. We will change the history we teach immediately. If there is a bright side to the curse it’s that it forced our people to become more accepting of those like the… I mean like Meluna. Thank you.”

After exchanging a few more pleasantries, the six of them board the Lions to return to the Atlas.

“You know, we never figured out why Keith could see the spirits on that planet in the first place,” Hunk points out.

“Maybe it has something to do with his sensitivity to quintessence?” Pidge guesses.

“Whatever the reason, I’m sure we’ll find out sooner or later,” Keith says tiredly.


End file.
